


home sweet home

by doctorkaitlyn



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25512544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorkaitlyn/pseuds/doctorkaitlyn
Summary: Eudora’s apartment is stifling.(or, in the middle of the night, Diego ruminates on the meaning of the wordhome.)
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Eudora Patch
Comments: 10
Kudos: 28





	home sweet home

**Author's Note:**

> we rewatched s1 of Umbrella Academy in preparation for season 2 and I got hit with Feelings, so here's this!

Eudora’s apartment is stifling. 

Even with the two windows opened as far as they'll budge in their warped frames and a creaking fan pointed directly at the bed, there’s no relief from the heat wave that has settled over the city as thick as fog. The bedding, with the exception of a thin sheet bunched around their waists, has been kicked off the edge of the mattress, and Diego gave up on wearing clothes a few hours ago (even before they tumbled into bed together, hands fumbling over each other’s dampened skin), but there’s sweat slicking his skin, collecting in the middle of his chest and along his forehead. Glancing over at Eudora, he notices a bead of sweat trickle down the center of her bare back and catch in the dip at the base of her spine, just above where the sheet is resting. 

Despite the heat, she’s fast asleep, resting on her stomach with her head turned away from him, arms tucked under her thin pillow. Even when he carefully traces his finger down her back, following the path of the bead of sweat, she doesn’t stir. He leaves his hand resting on the base of her back, relishes in the feeling of her soft skin against his calloused palm, and shifts slightly in an attempt to get comfortable, very much aware of the edge of the mattress on his immediate left. His eyelids are heavy, and his body is sore in half a dozen spots from a day’s worth of pummeling at the police academy, but he suspects that it’ll still be some time before he passes out. All of the training his father inflicted upon him, the insistence that he always work harder, that he push through fatigue for as long as necessary, sleep be damned, is coming back to bite him in the ass. 

He forces himself to close his eyes anyways and, for a few minutes, he thinks that maybe he’ll get lucky. He can feel his body growing heavier and heavier as it sinks into the sagging mattress, can feel his fingers slackening on Eudora’s back. Maybe, just maybe, he won’t have to drink a whole pot of coffee tomorrow in order to have the energy to make it to their mandatory early morning workout session at the academy’s gym. 

But then someone slams on a horn outside. The sound is followed by an explosive rush of curse words, another horn and a squeal of tires against asphalt, and even though the sounds fade away quickly, are swallowed back up by the persistent murmur of the city, of humming vents and traffic and distant conversations, Diego stays awake. 

He left home three years ago without a backwards glance, but he doesn’t know if he’ll ever get used to how noisy the city can be, even in the dead hours of the night. Deep within the walls of the sprawling mansion, nights were almost eerily silent. There was no need to open the windows – the old man kept every last room of the place at exactly room temperature through a complicated cooling system of his own design – and any kind of noise after their bedtime (which varied over the years and was subject to change if they had a mission to go on) was strictly prohibited. The most noise he heard on a normal night was the steady thud of his knives into the dart board on the other side of the room, repeated until he fell asleep with a blade still in his hand. 

Eudora’s studio apartment is scarcely bigger than his childhood bedroom; from where he’s lying, he can see the entirety of it. Thanks to the light coming through the window in the tiny kitchen that makes up one side of the room, he can see their dinner plates on the counter, the lumpy couch that the two of them hauled six blocks when they found it sitting on a curb, and the brick of a television with the crooked antenna jauntily balanced on top. It’s certainly not the prettiest place in the world (even without taking into account the faded beige paint covering the walls and the aging appliances and the water stain on the bathroom ceiling), but it’s _familiar_. Even though he, technically, has his own place, he spends so much time here that he could make a detailed inventory of it at a moment’s notice. He knows which spots in the floor creak more than others, knows which one of the cupboards has to be closed forcefully, lest it swing right back open, he knows the backstories behind most of the trinkets Eudora has on the shelves installed around the room. 

He knows almost everything about the place. 

With a groan, he rolls onto his side, so he’s facing Eudora. Her dark hair is hanging loose over her shoulders, brushing against his forehead every time the nearby fan spins to face them. Even asleep, he can see the strength in her back and arms, see the curves of muscle just underneath her light brown skin. She has a bruise near her waist, a round one that probably came from someone’s fist during their sparring matches, and he finds himself draping his arm across her back so that he can trace the edges of it with his fingers. That makes her stir; however, before he can apologize or tell her to go back to sleep, she simply rolls onto her side and shifts backwards, so that her back is against his chest and his arm is curved around her waist. After that, she goes still again, but Diego still waits a few moments before he slides his arm up a little higher, so that it isn’t resting directly on the bruise, and tucks his other arm underneath his pillow. 

It’s really too hot for the two of them to be doing this – he can already feel sweat gathering where they’re pressed together – but he’ll be damned if he’s going to pull away from her. Instead, he closes his eyes, tucks his face against the back of her head, and inhales the floral smell of her shampoo. 

The next time a noise spikes outside (this time, it sounds like a racoon knocking over a garbage can and promptly scattering the contents in every direction), he doesn’t open his eyes. 

Eudora’s apartment may be brutally hot and loud. It may be too small for one person, let alone two. It may be even worse than a fixer-upper. It may be all of these things and more, things that Diego wouldn’t have to deal with if he was still in his father’s good graces, if he had simply kept his mouth shut and stuck to the status quo, if he’d stayed in his childhood bedroom. 

But despite all of those things, given the choice, Diego would pick her apartment every single time. 

Why would he choose the mansion when he could choose home instead?

**Author's Note:**

> as always, I can be found on [tumblr.](http://banshee-cheekbones.tumblr.com) :)


End file.
